Saskatchewan is a minimalist's paradise.
My wife's dad would joke,
"Art is easy there. One straight line across the page,
and you've drawn the landscape."
Yes, hard to pronounce--easy to draw!
Look hard enough and squint,
you see the back of your own head.
I know all the jokes.
The joke is the poor BC people.
I was one not long ago.
They are so blessed by a bounty of beauty,
they cannot see the elegance of solid simplicity.
There, a curve is just another one of many.
Who notices?
But when you drive like an arrow and then get thrown a curve ball,
it's exciting!
Hills, valleys, rivers? They've got hundreds, each prettier than the last one.
When you suddenly drop out of the monotony into a dale
out here, you really notice it.
Then there is the sky, the endless, ever changing, panoramic, living skies.
We are people of such faith we said to the mountains,
"Be thou removed and cast into the sea."
They were blocking the view.
Out there, it's like, "Look at the beautiful sunse...oh it's gone behind a hill."
As we drive, we see a miles high cloud bank like a great wall.
To the left is azure fields of sky with wispy sheep of clouds.
To the right is God's own pastel palette air-brushed by the setting sun
and decorated with brushstroke slashes of rain falling miles away.
Behind us the night is steadily sneaking up like a swarm of grasshoppers.
You just have to open up your heart and see.
